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He always ignored them unless he needed to talk business. Dante always insisted that Alejandro deal with him directly.
There was a message from Ortega, and he sighed as he read it.
O:
Going to ground for a while. Don’t contact me.
Who the fuck knew what that meant? One day, his brother was going to get himself into trouble that neither he nor Dante could get him out of.
A headache was threatening as Nighthawk called him.
“Have you found her?” he asked.
“Found her? I thought she was staying with you? Did you lose her? Boss, don’t you know how to keep hold of a lady?”
“What?” he snapped.
“What?” Nighthawk repeated.
Fuck it. He should know better than to be even the slightest bit vague with his questions.
“Did you find Starla?” he asked.
“Ah, no. We’re tracking all of her friends down and checking everywhere for her. Did you know that she was sleeping with Vince?”
He straightened. “No? How’d you find that out?”
“Found secret messages to him. Took me a while to figure out who the messages were to.”
Fuck. Was that why she’d gone after Cat?
“That’s why you called me?” he asked.
“Ah, that was one reason.”
“Okay. So?” he asked.
“So what?”
“What’s the other reason?” he asked, trying to hold on to his impatience.
“Oh, it’s about that girl you have or maybe don’t have at your place.”
“Cat?”
“That’s her. I’ve had searches going on in the background and I was bored this afternoon, so I did some more looking. And well . . . whoever she hired to create a fake life for her was good. Not better than me, of course. But it took a while.”
“Wait. Back up. A fake life?”
“Yeah, turns out Catherine Smithson doesn’t really exist. Although she does have guardians called Jake and Elsie Smithson so the last name isn’t a complete lie. The rest of it, though? Yeah, it’s pretty much all lies.”
His breath caught in his lungs. What. The. Fuck.
“What is her name?”
“Catarina Pérez. Her birth mom is Penelope Pérez.”
“So she lied about her name.” What else had she lied about?
“She had someone create a whole new background for her with that name. And a new birthdate too. She’s not twenty-two.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty.”
Fuck.
Anger filled him. He started to shake. “What else?”
“Jake and Elsie Smithson took over guardianship for her when she was sixteen and her mom disappeared. I’m still digging. I found her birth certificate, but other than that, I can find out very little about her.”
“Father?”
“Not listed. It’s like she and her mom were ghosts. She’s interesting. Why is she hiding? Or from who?”
Fuck. That hadn’t occurred to him. Her fake identity might have nothing to do with him. It could be because she was in hiding.
“There was someone in her past who hurt her. She could be hiding from them.” Although she’d said they were dead. But she could be lying. Apparently, she did that. “And she knows an FBI Agent. She sends him Christmas cards. FBI Agent Stubbs.”
“Interesting. I’ll see if I can find any information about him. Maybe she met him when the mom disappeared.”
“I have her cell phone back at my place. If I send it and the charger over, can you get into it?”
“Easy-peasy.”
“Good. Let me know if you find anything.” He ended the call.
Rage rolled through him. Molten. Destructive.
Losing his temper wouldn’t solve anything. He had to find the ice that followed the lava. To find that cool, calm part that would analyze this information.
He’d let her close. She’d gotten under his skin.
And she’d lied to him.
It was a trigger for him, ever since Elena’s betrayal. But knowing it was a trigger didn’t lessen his rage.
How dare she fucking lie?
What was he going to do with her?
Fuck. The idea of letting her go felt wrong. But could he keep her around, knowing she’d lied?
And what if she did it to keep herself safe? She could have a legitimate reason.
That cooled some of his anger, giving him a target to aim toward. He’d take care of the reason she was hiding.
After he taught her not to keep things from him.
He allowed the rage to work its way through him. And by the end, he was cold. Ruthless. He knew he’d probably scare her like this. She hadn’t really experienced this side of him.
And he’d never intended to show her.
But this might have to be part of her punishment. To show her what happened to those who lied to him.
Finally, he was breathing easier as he stood up.
Time to go and find out the truth.
Cat’s head was pounding as she searched through the fridge for something to eat.
It wasn’t that she was hungry, but she knew if she took painkillers without eating, she’d regret it.
Her phone ringing had woken her, and she’d started to panic as she’d realized she was alone in Alejandro’s bedroom.
The caller had been Sampson and to say he wasn’t happy with her was putting mildly. She’d ignored several calls and messages while she’d been in Little headspace today. So she’d had to come clean about what was going on.
